


honesty need not be feared

by lateralplosion



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Future Fic, Growing Apart, Implied Past History, M/M, Unresolved Tension, almosts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-09
Updated: 2019-08-09
Packaged: 2020-08-13 10:21:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20172646
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lateralplosion/pseuds/lateralplosion
Summary: Renjun comes back to him piecemeal.





	honesty need not be feared

**Author's Note:**

> um, so. lin said a little wordy word, then i immediately proceeded to go through something incomprehensible (help).    
[suggested bgm](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Po-HRDpTnMo) ♡ bone app the teeth :^)

Renjun comes back to him piecemeal. Not broken, no—scarred over with six years of unfinished healing, maybe—but bit by little bit and slowly. Renjun comes back to him like an early morning dream, cupped water-like in his hands as details trickle down through his fingers. 

Jaemin sets down his seltzer to watch Renjun, for a moment, before Renjun can see him from where he's talking to Jungwoo.

He looks good—he always does. Hair swept up and off to the side out of the way of his eyes, dress pants slim-fitting and tailored to his legs. Jaemin is so unused to seeing Renjun in clothes that suit him, so used to their stylists dressing them in whatever outfits they deemed necessary. Jaemin is mostly used to Renjun accepting it without protest. Maybe that part is what's different now.

Renjun looks up without warning, and Jaemin smiles on reflex, anticipation a sudden flower blooming beneath his skin. He's almost expecting Renjun to look away, but he doesn't. Returns the smile easily, makes his way over. Jaemin had forgotten that Renjun could be like this, direct and transparent with his actions. He holds his gaze as Renjun walks over, watching the way his shirt tugs tight at the shoulders. 

"Wasn't expecting to see you here," is what Renjun tells him first, peering up at him perfunctorily. "I figured your schedule would have kept you busy."

"And not make time for Taeyeon-noona?" Jaemin's answer curves up the corners of his mouth even before he can stop it. This role comes back to him so naturally, the reflective coating he's lived in for so many years of his life easy to put on like a second skin. Jaemin reaches out to grip Renjun's shoulder, his grin broadening. "And to see our Renjunnie." They're the only ex-Dream members at Taeyeon's wedding—Jeno in Palawan filming for _ Laws of the Jungle_, Chenle and Jisung in Shanghai, and Mark and Donghyuck in the States. Even before accepting, Jaemin had known Renjun would be here, alone. 

Renjun snorts, glancing over to where Taeyeon and her husband are accepting well-wishes, Sooyoung and Yuri fluttering about her in their bridesmaids gowns. "Your movie should be done by now," he says. "Can we expect another box office success?"

Jaemin smiles at that. Renjun has never liked to praise him directly, instead fishing out for the things he knows would make Jaemin happy. And the movie he's filming for had been finished for months now, a mere few weeks out from the premiere. Renjun's right—he _ has _ been busy, but he'd made time for this. "It's coming along well," Jaemin says, feeling suddenly bold. "Are you coming to the premiere?"

Renjun's face shutters. "No," he says. An edge to his words, dulled slightly with careful practice, but Jaemin feels its point regardless. "I fly back to Shenzhen tomorrow."

"So soon," Jaemin says, shoving his hands in his pockets. "You can't stay for another day or two?"

Renjun stills a little, angles his head to look up at him. Really looks at him. "And what would I do for another day here?"

Jaemin stares back at him, at the steel-rigid set to his jaw, and considers it. A challenge poised as a question. "Spend it with me."

After a moment, Renjun turns away, shifting weight on his feet. "I'm flying back tomorrow."

"Then—" He's got his hand on Renjun's shoulder again, and Jaemin feels Renjun go stiff under his palm. Tenses, but doesn't pull away. Anticipatory, waiting. Jaemin pulls at him a little, forces Renjun to look at him. "Tonight, then," he says.

If Renjun intuits something else in the offer, he doesn't show any sign of it. His eyes go dark, then disconcertingly bright. "Fine."

It's surreal to have Renjun in his kitchen, sitting at the breakfast island with his feet inches off the ground, swirling the wine in his glass. 

"You don't drink," Renjun points out, nodding at where Jaemin is pouring one for himself, and Jaemin shrugs. It's a bottle he got from one of his directors last year. He has no idea if it's good or not. "You hate alcohol."

"I don't _ hate _ it," Jaemin says, and takes the seat next to him. "And, besides. You like wine."

Renjun's mouth curls up at the corners. "I do like wine."

Jaemin raises his glass. "Cheers."

"To your movie," Renjun says, and Jaemin has to stop himself from wincing, bringing the glass to his lips.

Renjun is looking around, and Jaemin lets him, follows his gaze around his apartment, at the things he's collected over the years. Tokens of accomplishments, a reminder of who he is. Jaemin's always found that he needed them, never had that same razor-sharp self-assuredness with which Renjun carried himself. It probably seems silly to him, but it's too late for that now, Jaemin watching as Renjun's eyes find their way back to his face.

"Do you regret it?"

The question catches him off guard, and Jaemin feels himself go bowstring tight. Renjun holds still, brows furrowed, watching him.

Jaemin doesn't need Renjun to explain. There's no way—even if he wanted one—to possibly explain what that night six years ago had done to him, to _ them_. Jaemin remembers it with an almost dream-like lucidity, the way both awkwardness and resentment dug in their claws and forced a void in between them. Jaemin sometimes wonders if Renjun had ever forgiven him. He looks at him now, and guesses not.

Neither of them had planned for it. It had just been one of those nights when Renjun was nursing away some of the leftover hurt alone in his room. He'd always hated when Renjun was like this, when he acted like the way their management treated him was just something he'd have to accept. Sometimes, Jaemin would get lucky and Renjun would let him in for fleeting moments at a time, long enough to pull him out of his head and back into their normal routine. It had been one of those nights.

He remembers sitting on Renjun's bed, carding fingers through his hair while Renjun scrolled miserably through social media. Jaemin always wanted to take his phone away, at times like those, but even he knew that he couldn't do something like that. Not to Renjun, whose armor was still scratched by the tight, scathing admonishments that Jaemin knew Renjun had taken to heart. Just as he did with everything else. 

"It doesn't have to be like this, you know," Jaemin had said, and Renjun had looked up at him with eyes that were large and glassy. Renjun had not cried then, even though Jaemin hadn't expected him to, but like this, it had been so easy to lean down and press his lips to his forehead, attune to Renjun's sharp inhale, try to make sense of it. With all his smallness, Renjun had seemed so alarmingly brittle. Like the spiderwebbing of fractures in Renjun's pride had gone just deep enough to manifest in this one moment of vulnerability, this gesture of tenderness Renjun had thought to seek out from him. 

It had been easy to cup Renjun's jaw in his palm, tug his chin up, kiss him. Even easier when Renjun looped an arm around his neck and kissed him back, fingers splaying up his chest, insistent. And afterwards, there had been no conversation, only Renjun's fingers working into the waistband of Jaemin's sweats and Jaemin with his mouth at Renjun's throat, feeling every single one of Renjun's whines with his lips over his pulse.

"Do you regret it?" Renjun's voice yanks him back to the present, tight in his chest, see-through right down to the ribs. Jaemin could count them if he wanted to. Six years ago, he had. Trailed fingers up Renjun's torso and committed every dip in his skin to memory, without knowing that he'd spend the next six years nursing a tender, aching want in his belly—embers glowing white-hot every time Jaemin looked at him. Jaemin looks at him now, and desire dries out the words in his mouth, his entire body pounding and hurting with the memory of it, of Renjun muffling soft cries into the shoulder of Jaemin's t-shirt and Jaemin clumsily driving forward with his boxers around his knees as he desperately tried to not make any noise. It had not—objectively—been anything good, but it had been wonderful in the way that all first times are. Tragic and sweet in its newness.

"Jaemin—" Renjun says again, quieter this time, and the look in his eyes is just as it was six years ago, open and spread out for Jaemin to see. And Renjun starts to say something else, but Jaemin leans in across the space between to kiss him.

He's expecting Renjun to push him away, but he doesn't. In fact, Renjun's reaction is immediate, hand fisting in Jaemin's dress shirt to drag him in, meeting the push of his mouth with tempered-steel resistance. Body and chest closed off at first, before Jaemin tongues at the seam of his mouth and the fight melts away into nothing. 

This is what Jaemin's always liked about him, the push and the pull of Renjun's will. The way he shoves back and yields, both of his own volition, the way Jaemin never knows which one he'll get, but he'll take it anyway. He'll take anything he can get from Renjun, and Renjun is giving him the go-ahead now, opens his mouth and lets Jaemin lick in, teeth slick against his tongue. A hand gripping vice-like at his shoulder, his legs spreading to let Jaemin slot himself between, slowly grind forward.

Renjun keens into his mouth, and heat rappels down Jaemin's spine as he crowds him against his countertop and lets Renjun drag his hips against him, rough and uncoordinated. It's exactly the same, and _not_ all at once, Renjun's fingertips skating along the nape of his neck as Jaemin sucks careful, meticulous marks underneath his ear. The trembling hesitance, the tremulous silence of it all, how easily and quickly they'd topple off with just a push. 

Renjun is nudging at him now, pulling back, and angry red suffusing across his nose bridge. Jaemin lets Renjun push him away. 

"Jaemin," Renjun says again, this time breathless. "You should know that I—since that time—"

"It's okay if you've slept with other people," Jaemin interrupts, curls a hand around Renjun's hip and gently tugs him closer. Renjun goes willingly. "I don't care about that—"

"I haven't," Renjun says. His hand is on his chest again, hesitant. "That's what I'm saying—I haven't—"

"Oh," Jaemin says, going still. "I—oh."

Renjun surveys him for another moment before stepping back, crossing his arms. "Why'd you do it?"

Jaemin swallows and sits down. "Are we really having this conversation now?"

"What?" Renjun's eyes go stormy. "What's wrong with that?"

"It's been _ years_, Renjun," Jaemin says. He knows he's getting impatient. He can hear it in his voice. "Why bring it up all of a sudden?"

Renjun chews at his bottom lip, holds his gaze. "I never stopped thinking about it. I didn't know what it meant."

"Neither of us knew what it meant," Jaemin says, a little too sharply. "It just—happened."

Renjun is quiet for a moment. "Because I was upset."

Jaemin exhales through his teeth. "No," he says. Because image is paramount in this industry, and Jaemin's gotten extremely good at catering to it. Because Renjun's always been just a little too honest, and Jaemin had always known it would get him in trouble, wound him in the end. Because Renjun was there, and Jaemin had known he was hurting, but that's not why he did it— "Because I _ liked _ you."

The air goes still and carefully silent, confusion a thin spider-silk stringing them together. Renjun's eyes are round and bright beneath his brows. "I always hoped that you—"

Jaemin swallows, noisily. "You hoped—?"

Renjun leans against the counter, lip sucked between his teeth. "I wish you hadn't, sometimes. Slept with me."

Jaemin starts. "Renjun—"

"I liked you a lot, you know," Renjun says quietly, the confession colored ashy with bitterness. Jaemin's lungs feel too big for his ribs, the air pressed out of all its oxygen. "But, sometimes, I wish you hadn't done it. At least, I wish you'd done it earlier. I hate that you waited until right before I was about to leave."

His throat is constricting, all coiled springs, around his heart. "Maybe we can try it now," Jaemin says, hating the way it sounds to his ears. Desperate. Hates the way Renjun hears it and doesn't even bat an eyelash. "Properly, this time."

Renjun's smile is dry and sorrowful. "Try what, Jaemin? I'll be in China again tomorrow. Nothing's changed. You know that."

"We can't—what—" Jaemin stands up in front of him, holding himself by the elbows. Holding himself in. "Are you saying that we can't try?"

"I can't do it," Renjun says. "I just—I'm not built for that."

Renjun, whose wants he gives in absolutes. Renjun, who has never been able to comfortably fragment his desires, to dole himself out at intervals the way Jaemin could. Maybe this is something that Jaemin should have known all along. That he'd never get Renjun to be his if it wasn't all of him without exception. 

Jaemin takes a deep breath, reaching out for his hand. "Renjun, I—"

"Don't say it." Renjun's eyes are bright, shiny, but Jaemin knows he's not going to cry over this. He hadn't then, and he won't now.

Jaemin swallows, his tongue thick and dry in his mouth. "Why not?"

"You don't mean it," Renjun says. It's not a question.

"Well, what if I want to mean it?"

Renjun looks at him with his arms folded over his chest, over his heart, like he's trying to protect the last of himself he has left. But Jaemin knows better. Renjun has never played defense for long. "You can't, Jaemin." Then, more softly, "You won't."

It's not what he'd been expecting, tonight, asking Renjun to come here. Jaemin's not even sure what he's asking Renjun for, what he's offering in return, but this is a door that Jaemin's not ready to close, and Renjun has already got both hands on the handle.

"Let it go, Renjun," Jaemin says, almost a plea. For a moment, he almost sees himself doing it, getting on his knees to beg this of him, but he won't. They both know he won't.

Renjun shakes his head, slow, his low exhales shaky and thunder-loud in the quiet. "I can't."

Jaemin smooths down his shirt almost self-consciously, licks his lips, tasting the words on his tongue. "Please," he says once more, knowing that it will mean nothing. Renjun will not make the same mistake again. 

Renjun smiles at him, and this one feels final, the last slice through the chain. Jaemin's known for a while that this never would work. His pride had been the last thing to let go. 

And so Jaemin watches Renjun put his shoes back on, knowing full well that there will never be anyone quite like him, but Renjun is not Jaemin's fulcrum and lever with which to move the world. Jaemin will need to accept that there is a life that Renjun has planned which does not include him.

It could have, if he'd wanted. It might have, if he'd tried.

But he didn't.

So—_here we are_, Jaemin thinks. His apartment door closes shut behind Renjun, and he thinks, _ okay. _

**Author's Note:**

> <strike>(jaemren 2019 = dojae 2016?)</strike>
> 
> HI, sorry for this. good night
> 
> [twt](http://twitter.com/plosionlateral) | [cc](http://curiouscat.me/haetbit)


End file.
